International Broadcasting – A Strategic Challenge?
08 Apr 2013
RISJ Research Associate Anne Geniets is this month publishing a book with Routledge entitled 'The Global News Challenge: Market Strategies of International Broadcasting Organizations in Developing Countries'.The book examines challenges facing international broadcasters with universal branding strategies in developing countries. In these heavily government-controlled media environments with a scarcity of reliable information, international news providers traditionally had an influential position. With the ongoing media liberalization, however, commercial domestic providers have gained in strength to become strong competitors. Additionally, in a number of countries, especially the Middle East, pan-Arab broadcasting enterprises have widened their reach, contributing to the growing competition for international providers such as the BBC or France 24. Drawing on extensive focus group interviews in different markets conducted in the context of the Reuters Institute’s International News Project, the book offers a timely analysis of changing information infrastructures and audience demands in developing countries and their impact on business strategies for international broadcasting organizations. The book employs a global perspective to explore the subject across the whole population and different media platforms in select developing markets of Africa and South Asia. It is unique in providing a theoretical framework by which to analyze demand and usage of and trust in news from international broadcasters across the whole population, including media consumption needs and strategies of people from low socio-economic status backgrounds, not just opinion leaders. It outlines the strategic options for international broadcasters in these evolving market contexts. Anne Geniets is a research associate at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and at the Oxford Internet Institute. Her research focuses on communications, media and development in different contexts.
